Tom Cruise IS Jack Reacher! (Maybe.)

But is casting Cruise as a 6'5", 250 lb. bruiser the biggest reach of all?

Tom Cruise isn't a tall guy. 5'7" is nothing to sneeze at, at least without a liberal application of tissues afterwards, but 6'5" he ain't. That normally doesn't stop the Cruise Missile from headlining in action movies, but now that he's in talks to play the character of Reacher, the star of Lee Child's popular novel series, it's all anybody seems to want to talk about. It's called an apple box, people. Cruise can stand on it.

Cruise is officially in talks to star in One Shot, the ninth book in Lee Child's series of novels starring the character of Jack Reacher, a former marine now drifting around America getting in adventures. One Shot finds Reacher out to prove an accused murderer's innocence, something which has never been done in a movie before. Deadline reports that Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions are in talks to get Cruise to headline the film before Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion shoots in January, if possible, and afterwards if necessary. They're committed to Cruise if they can get him. Author Childs even defended the casting idea, stating "Reacher's size in the books is a metaphor for an unstoppable force, which Cruise portrays in his own way."

More importantly, and infinitely more exciting to film buffs, One Shot will mark the second directorial effort of Christopher McQuarrie, the Academy Award-winning writer of The Usual Suspects. McQuarrie's debut film as a director, The Way of the Gun, is an enormously underrated crime film with a classic car chase and quite possibly the best shootout ever filmed. McQuarrie has an extensive relationship with Cruise, writing the screenplay for Valkyrie and contributing work to this Winter's Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol as well as The Tourist, in which Cruise was originally supposed to star. We're ecstatic to see him behind the camera once again.

Crave Online will return with more One Shot news after we pound a few shots of our own.